


There's a spark in you

by sunnysideup



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bit of humour, Date fics, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day Fics, hint of smut but not much more than that which is still more than normal for me, lots of fluff, ziam go on a date to a fairground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 19:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17793122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnysideup/pseuds/sunnysideup
Summary: What do you get if you cross Liam, Zayn, a fairground and some whipped cream?  Their second date.Here's what happens.





	There's a spark in you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blacktreacle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreacle/gifts).



> This fic was written for venereal-s (on tumblr) / blacktreacle following the TheZiamClub Valentine Gift Exchange on tumblr.
> 
> The prompt I chose (and honestly they were all amazing - I almost did the sad fic) was:Liam swivels around on his feet with a boyish smirk. “Be the toast to my crust?”  
> Zayn laughs and takes the toast from his hand. “No, but I’ll have it, anyway.”  
> “Hey,” he pouts.  
> “Sorry, babe. You’re just not my kind of jam.”  
> (A cute, fluffy au where Liam takes Zayn to a fare on a date and wins him the biggest teddy bear on the rack, and then maybe eats whipped cream off Zayn’s belly in bed later. Zayn finds Liam is also really good at sucking cock, too. And making toast in the morning.) 
> 
> I hope what I've done makes you smile and you enjoy it even just a little bit.
> 
> The below wouldn't have been anywhere near as legible/readable (well assuming it is) without Tricia's support and read through, you're amazing and I'm so grateful. Any errors you may see are all down to me. Hope you all you had a day filled with love xxx

“Eight doughnuts for a pound, eight doughnuts for a pound, get your doughnuts ‘ere.”

Zayn eyes the man stood across from him, breathes in the unmistakable aroma that’s been one of his favourites since he was a kid, and there’s a moment where he’s feeling round in his pockets for the pound coin he needs to pay for them, all other thoughts and all nerves gone.

“You’ve got that single-minded look of determination I’ve only ever seen in people who are obsessed with minty ring doughnuts from the fair. Not sure whether to be impressed or I dunno.”

Just like that the smell of the doughnuts is forgotten and instead he’s consumed by the smell of the man next to him.  

That mix of cologne that he talked about once years ago when they were in the same school but nowhere near the same friendship group, and Zayn had pretended not to listen, not to quickly consign it to memory and do exactly the same thing for all his adult life.

The man next to him, Liam Payne, his date.  HIS date. Yes brain, he tells himself, you really need to put the emphasis on that cause if you’d told Zayn that he’d be here tonight after all these years with Liam, he’d have told you to sod off and that there was more chance of him living it up on some deserted island somewhere living off his lottery winnings than this.

It’s a funny looking desert island this if it is one.

“That, or you’re having a funny turn, Zayn, are you okay?”

The look on Liam’s face, the look of concern, it's almost comical, he looks like a golden retriever puppy who’s been told that balls or twigs have just been banned but with added concern.

It’d be almost fun to play along with it. Zayn has this feeling that Liam would make a very good concerned boyfriend, all attentive, full of forehead kisses and staying close to Zayn under the auspices of making sure he didn’t get feverish.  

Almost would be fun cause there’s another thing that’s more fun. That’s a funfair, and especially one where Zayn is with one Liam Payne.

“Sorry. Sorry. Liam. I just got a bit lost in the whole memory lane thing. Me dad used to buy me them like they were going out of fashion on his way home from work when I was a kid, and every single summer mum would have to buy me a bigger pair of trousers to make up for the fact that I lived on a ring doughnuts from the fair diet.”

Liam grins.

“That’s a great memory. It was candy floss for me that made my entire funfair visiting life worthwhile when I was a kid. I had so much I can’t even look at the stuff now.” Then quieter and with a furtive look around he adds, “Plus candy floss always reminds me of my Auntie Helen’s blue rinse haircut and she only ever gave me 50p each birthday, so yeah, no thanks candy floss.”

“50p on your birthday?”

“I know. Luckily she got done for fiddling the electricity and disappeared down to Cornwall so we never saw her again, but yeah, major stingebag.”

Liam smiles at Zayn and okay, there’s a fair to explore and food to eat and then rides to feel sick on and maybe even ducks to catch off a conveyor belt to win cheap plastic toys on, but for a moment, Zayn wonders if he could get away with staying here just staring at Liam.

Staring at the way his eyes sparkle, the way that the sunlight that’s fading on what’s been a  perfect late summer day in their neck of the wood still succeeds in making it like he almost has a halo above his head, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles and the way his nose scrunches up.

He looks anything but the serious political activist he is nowadays.  

Zayn’s gaze travels downwards, and he’s just about to compare the birthmark on Liam’s neck to a replica of his own heart or something cheesy like that that the girls back at the hospital would rib him for days if they knew. He’ll tell Moira, his secretary, on Sunday because he’s never yet been able to keep anything quiet about Liam and his feelings from the moment anything of this became even a remote possibility.

The gentle scuff against his trainers stops his journey of appreciation down Liam’s, well, everything if he had any choice in the matter, and he looks up to meet Liam’s eyes.

“Trust me, the view’s as tempting from here so I could stop here all night too, but there’s a waltzer that’s got our name on it and a big wheel from which I hear you can see as far as Tesco’s in the Swann estate, and I dunno, if you’re lucky, I may just see what I can win you at the hook-a-duck game.”

“You had me at Tesco’s in Swann Estate Liam.”

Liam throws his head back with laughter, takes a full step back and almost crashes into the doughnut seller who’s getting increasingly desperate and who mutters ‘idiot’ under his breath, but Zayn’s too lost in the way everything feels like it's never going to be sad again when Liam laughs.

He resolves to make it happen often.

**

It’s colder suddenly as the clock winds on past 7pm, and all Liam and Zayn have been doing for the last hour or two is talk, walk and watch the people around them.

They eat doughnuts too because Liam has a heart of gold and told Zayn that he’d seen the doughnut seller working in the local supermarket and he’s sure he’s a taxi driver too and everyone needs all the help they can get in this day and age.

It takes the edge off the chill of the evening at least.

They’re stood now between the waltzer, the dodgems, and the big wheel and maybe now’s the time for Zayn to let Liam know he has a passionate hatred of heights.

Well, heights where he can see how far he’d fall if it went tits up. It’s part of the reason why he’s never been in the loft space or used the loft ladder in his top floor flat. That and the fact that Ant had got him to watch an episode of CSI once that had a stalker living above their prey in the loft and it probably explains, albeit in a ‘that’s TV Zayn you irrational overactive imagined wally kind of way’, why the loft is boarded up.  

Trouble is, Liam’s like a kid at Christmas in Summer as they approach the wheel and the sadly non-existent queue for it.  

The music at fairgrounds is always so loud, but here it’s a different kind of loud. It’s also not so bad. It’s Carly-Rae Jepsen one minute, Lauv the next, and now The Jackson Five, and Zayn isn’t mad about it.

Liam’s holding his wrist up to the disinterested ride attendant who’s on her phone and waving her hand absentmindedly as Liam rushes past her.

Zayn stares up at the ride, it doesn’t help that there are only two other people he can see on the ride and look, he’s watched Final Destination 1, 2, and 3 and he’s sure in some script there’s a freak accident on a big wheel.  

“Zayn, you coming?”

Zayn looks away from the ride and to Liam who’s beaming and honestly, if it’s not tonight on this ride, it’ll be someday that he’ll be the death of Zayn.

He summons up a smile, weak though it probably is, and with a look at the attendant which he hopes somehow transmits to, press the wrong button right now immediately so this ride gets magicked into thin air somehow, he walks to where Liam’s stood and gesturing ahead of him for Zayn to get into the red and yellow striped open gondola in front of them.

Two minutes later and they’re sat in the gondola, just one measly metal bar protecting Zayn from spilling out and it’s okay, right? He can hold his breath for the next ten minutes or however long they’ll be on this thing for, right?

Wrong. He lasts two minutes as they take off and get higher and higher. And down on the ground, Zayn hadn’t noticed that the breeze isn’t quite a breeze, it’s more like a fairly brisk wind.

Zayn feels every wobble and he keeps his eyes shut and his hands firmly gripped onto the metal bar.

He can hear Liam chattering away. Zayn’s fairly sure he’s face timing his mum and dad or something. Or maybe one of his sisters, which is cute and all but can’t he see that Zayn’s about to combust with terror?

It’s as though Liam is telepathic, or maybe he just saw the way Zayn’s knuckles must be white, and Zayn’d be able to see if he could bring himself to open his eyes.

“You’re afraid of heights? Oh god, you are, aren’t you? And I made you come on this, oh my god, Zayn.”

Liam’s hand falls on top of Zayn’s, and for a moment Zayn feels him try to prise one, and then another finger away from the bar but when Zayn’s not having any of it, there’s a small ‘hmmm’ sound Zayn hears before Liam locks his fingers in between Zayn’s.

“You’re safe, babe, I haven’t dreamt of this for all my life for it to happen tonight for any harm to ever come to you. ‘Specially not on a big wheel.”

Zayn’s a cynic. He’s just started out as a General Practitioner at the local surgery after years in rotation at the big hospital in the city. He’s seen it all, heard it all, watched the best and worst of life.  

Anyone else, he’d be opening his eyes long enough only to roll them at the other person and then he’d pull his hand away and get away from this person as soon as they were off the ride.

Instead, all he hears is ‘Haven’t dreamt of this for all my life’ and ‘you’re safe babe’ and he opens his eyes and looks to his right and if he looked past Liam, he’d probably lose his nerve. But instead Liam meets his eyes and he’s blushing almost which makes him look so much younger. Then he shrugs.

“Sorry, but I mean it, and I’m sorry I got you up here.”

“I’m a grown man, Li. I could have said no, and it’s not like this our first date and we’re strangers or anything.”

“But still.”

“But still what, Liam? Just keep hold of me hand while I look ahead, eh?”

“Of course.”

Zayn turns his head away from Liam to look straight ahead and it steals his breath for a moment, but not because it’s high up, (okay maybe a little bit). It’s just no one who lives 'round here would call this place pretty, or scenic, or even quaint or attractive.

Twenty or thirty miles away, yeah. But not here. It’s marred and scarred by it’s past, by collieries that haven’t been worked in for decades, and a lack of investment meaning there are just office blocks from the 70s and the only investment has been in supermarkets and B&M’s and Home and Bargains and pound shops in retail parks as far as the eye can see.

Except tonight when the lights started to fade and the lights of the fair aren’t so garish anymore, the reds and greens and yellows and blues that bounce off each other and then beyond as Zayn looks further ahead. There’s street lights, lights from the A-roads and sure enough, he can see the Tesco’s but it’s actually fucking beautiful ‘cause just beyond all that Zayn can see the moors, where he used to play.

Where Liam would have played once he’s sure too.  

“You okay?”

Zayn glances quickly away from the view to Liam and murmurs, “Yeah,” before he looks back at the view and this time, louder, he repeats, “Yeah I am.”

It’s fine for twenty minutes up at the top, even twenty-five minutes but when it gets to thirty minutes and even Liam’s starting to fidget, Zayn wonders if the attendant had seen the look he’d given her and is just really bad at body language and thought they wanted to shag up here or something.

There have been worse ideas of course but Zayn doubts the gondola could stand even the mildest bit of heavy petting.

It’s getting cold now though and Zayn’s feeling the absence of any layers other than his thin jacket.

Good job Liam’s telepathy skills really are off the charts as he feels himself pulled nearer, pulled into Liam and they adjust their hands on the bar, still making sure their fingers are intertwined. To add to the cliche Zayn rests his head against Liam’s chest, and if it wasn’t for the risk of hypothermia if they stay up here too long, he could stay like this always.

“Haven’t dreamed of this for all my life?”  

He can’t even believe the words came out of his mouth and he wants to pull them back in, hopes Liam didn’t hear but instead there’s a soft little rumble of a chuckle more than a laugh from Liam.

“You gonna pretend you didn’t admire me from afar either, Quiffy?”

It’s Zayn’s turn to chuckle and he lifts a hand up from the bar to rub it against his own face.

“Oh my god, fuck me I haven’t been called Quiffy since I was 17 when I last had a quiff. God, I can’t believe me dad let me walk around in public like that.”

“Almost as bad as my Bieber phase.”

“Oi, I liked your Bieber phase.” Zayn pulls away from Liam a bit to look at him and he’s about to say ‘Nice attempt at avoiding the question’ but two things happen.

There’s a judder and the gondola shakes a little before it starts to move and thank goodness, but also damn.

And then like it’s some kind of cliche, like the universe planned it.

“Katy fucking Perry, I love this so—”

If people were to ask Zayn if he was bold, he’d say sure he is, he’s just done 5 years in a hospital and just started to be a GP and he’s still just in his twenties, that’s bold. But personally, love life wise?  Never. Not enough time, for one, and too much heartbreak once when he was training put paid to boldness.

So what is it about Liam Payne? Why now? Why not when it was easier when they were kids?

He steals the breath from Liam as he kisses him. It’s quick. It’s too quick, and it’s not as though they didn’t kiss on the first date.

Or once at that disco at the crappy social club in town outside away from judging glances where this fucking song played.

_Do you know that there's still a chance for you, 'Cause there's a spark in you, You just gotta ignite the light, And let it shine, Just own the night. Like the Fourth of July ___

____

____

He’s still breathing fast when he opens his eyes and pulls away slightly. He’s aware of Liam’s hand clutching onto Zayn’s arm and the way Liam’s eyes look out of it but in a good way,  not from the sugar high of the doughnuts Maybe it’s the fact that they’re so high up and it’s heady all this, but Zayn’s sure if he held up a mirror, he’d be the same.

He thinks maybe they should stay on this ride just to keep experiencing it but then he hears Liam’s groan and he looks away from Liam and notices the fact that they’re almost back down on the ground where the ride attendant is waiting, looking apologetic with someone older next to her who’s shouting not so quietly before they approach Liam and Zayn.

“We’re so very sorry. There was an, erm, a malfunction. On behalf of Wilks Fairgrounds and Amusements Limited, please accept these vouchers for whichever game you want to try, and we hope this will be the end of it.”

Zayn thinks he does a passable impersonation of someone annoyed, and Liam does too, but as they walk away and Liam brandishes the vouchers he grins triumphantly and announces, “I’m winning you the biggest teddy bear in this fairground tonight and no one’s gonna stop me.”

He’s not sure he could never be annoyed again in his entire lifetime.

**

Zayn’s annoyed.  

Stupid, bloody, fixed, fairground games. Stupid, bloody, adorable, huge teddy bears that Liam’s determined to win for Zayn and is laser-focused on winning no matter how much Zayn tries to convince him it’s really fine and he can live without them.

The stupid bloody way that Liam’s taken off his jacket and thrusted it at Zayn an hour ago, and stupid Zayn for not being able to take his eyes away from the way Liam’s arm muscles flex and his jaw muscles twitch as he concentrates so hard each time he tries one of the stupid games.

Hoopla, The Kentucky Derby, the grabby machines. All a massive fail.

Liam had dismissed hook-a-duck at the start, but it’s their only hope and thankfully the last place they can attempt to win the teddy bear.

Liam’s face is a picture as he realises he’s run out of tokens and has to actually pay to play hook-a-duck, but then as soon as the man hands him the hook, his whole expression changes as he narrows his eyes in concentration and stares at the duck.

“Li, it’s literally no strategy at all, just pick three ducks and then if we win, great, if we don’t we—”

The look he gets from Liam reminds him of when his dad used to get told by Zayn’s auntie that ‘football’s only a game, get over it’ when Sheffield United had lost….again.

“Okay, I’ll shut up then.”

So he does and predictably Liam doesn’t win a thing. Not even one, and Zayn thinks he’s about to give up. They can go home, maybe kiss on the doorstep and then Zayn will go inside and wonder if he should have invited him in and then spend the next three days over-analysing everything and so on till he marries Liam.

Or something.

Instead, Liam’s staring at the ducks still and Zayn’s eyes narrow as he watches the bloke running the stall eyeing Liam curiously, even suspiciously.

Liam pulls out the money and is handing it over and taking back the rod before Zayn can blink and the first duck.

Wins.

Then the second, and honestly, the third time Zayn doesn't even get a chance to see ‘cause Liam’s pulling him into his arms and yelling loudly in his ear.

“Knew there was a strategy! I knew it and I won it. I promised I’d win it, promised I would never let you down, Zed.”

He looks so earnest as he pulls away from the hug and his eyes are brighter than they should be and Zayn gets it now, he understands it more, the need to do this.

The importance, the symbolism, that he’s not going to go anywhere else now, he’s not going to break anything, particularly not Zayn or his heart.

Thirty minutes later and the bus driver shakes his head as they get on and mutters ‘kids these days’ as they put Bob the Bear on the seat in front of them and sit together, close, but not holding hands, just enjoying being together.

Cause it’s been too long since Zayn had this.

**

Another twenty minutes later and Zayn’s starting to realise the benefits of winning Bob at the fair.  

1\. He’ll get in his sister’s good books when he gives him to his niece (maybe).

2\. Liam had carried him all the way from the bus and the weight of it had meant he kept holding the arms and carrying it on his back which meant his jacket kept riding up and Zayn got a wonderful view of his arse under the guise of ‘making sure you don’t drop it or do yourself an injury babe’.

And

    3.  The best bit, to be honest, it had given him the perfect excuse to invite Liam in.

Bob’s in Zayn’s bedroom right now in the corner.  

Zayn and Liam are sat on the settee. At opposite ends. It’s like they’re in some tragic sitcom and all that’s missing is the battleaxe auntie or mother in between them as the cock block.

Or maybe they don’t even need one.

At some point, Zayn goes to the toilet and considers texting Doniya, but then he’s not about to die just cause he’s not getting his end away so he goes to Google before he realises ‘I’m actually gagging for it and he’s at the other end of the sofa what do I do?’ probably isn’t a search result.

Maybe tonight’s just not the right time. Maybe he’ll be fine and they’ll be fine. He just needs more patience. He’s waited this long, another week or two won’t kill him.

He flushes the toilet, washes his hands, resolves to think of blocked toilets or something else as mood killing and then walks out the door, turning off the light as he does just as he hears the kitchen light being turned off.

Huh?

The main lights are off in the living room. It’s just the candles, the scented ones his mum bought him a few years back ‘Just for when you invite a nice man back so your house won’t smell of sad Zayn anymore’.

The small light he has in the corner is on too, but Liam’s not there.

“Liam?”

“In here.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, there are three other rooms and he’s out of practice okay?  He’s sure someone in New Zealand can hear Liam’s sigh as Zayn opens the door to the airing cupboard.

“Fuck me, I’m hardly liking to be hiding in the airing cupboard am I Malik? Get in here now.”

It’s a wild guess out of the remaining two rooms maybe, but Zayn walks into his bedroom and he’s sure his jaw drops.

He thought that was a myth but no, it’s a thing, and so is Liam Payne, in his bedroom wearing absolutely fucking nothing except a broad smile and holding…...the whipped cream spray can that Zayn’s had for too long.

For the top of coffees and stuff.  

“You aren’t dairy intolerant?” Liam asks as though they’re sat in some restaurant or he’s some inspector for food who wanders around restaurants starkers.

Zayn’s dick definitely reacts to that thought.

Somehow Zayn manages a normal response.

“No, I’m not, Liam, what?”

“It’s just I’m all about safety first, speaking of?”

It’s happening. Zayn realises it then, at that moment, and there were times he’d wondered if it ever would with anyone, never mind Liam.

“Yeah, yeah, I got some a week or two back.”

“Good optimism or just very aware this was inevitable I reckon.”

Zayn reaches into the drawer, pulls out the packet and smiles. “Yeah, that.”

Liam smirks.

“I mean, I’m not averse but you and this whipped cream with all those clothes on... a bit messy I reckon.”

Zayn scratches at his chin, unable to keep the grin from his face, unwilling to hold anything back anything longer.

Slowly, he removes his t-shirt. Slower still, or at least he tries slower still, he gracefully and provocatively removes his jeans but the urgency and his lack of any of this for so long means he almost ends up stumbling over and he can hear Liam’s light laugh as he looks up and chucks the jeans in Liam’s direction when he’s finally out of them. There’s no change in any other part of Liam, no sense that he’s going off the idea of it.

A voice in Zayn’s head says ‘Why would he be?’ He should listen to it more.  

Soon he’s naked too.

“So.” Zayn says.

“So.” Liam repeats.

“You got experience with that stuff?”

Liam starts to laugh. “Have I got experience with this st—.Yeah, yeah I do.”

Zayn’s not sure what happens next but he feels a hand grasping at his hair and then Liam’s teeth nibble on Zayn’s bottom lip before he feels himself pushed back onto the bed and hears the top for the spray get dropped onto the floor beside the bed.

The cream’s cold and almost ticklish on his chest but then Liam sprays it further down his body towards his naval and he always thought this kind of stuff wasn’t his cup of tea but maybe he’ll order a job lot from Tesco.

Later, that is. Not right now.

Or maybe now? Because Liam’s off the bed then and reaching for something off the floor that looks that a t-shirt and he’s leaving already when Zayn’s like this?

“Can’t have Bob’s tender little brain bleached after he witnesses all this and we can’t block his ears but we can certainly stop him having to see it.”

Liam drapes the t-shirt over Bob’s head, then with a satisfied grin, he accompanies it with a thumbs up to Zayn who throws his head back to laugh cause honestly what the fuck is tonight?

He barely gets a chance to think before Liam’s tongue licks at the whipped cream, and then to the left where there’s none, just the feel of Liam’s tongue tickling against his skin, the sensations burning through Zayn.

He’s got no expectations but he expects with the amount of whipped cream on his body, it’ll be a while before anything else happens.

Then Liam’s tongue tickles at the tip of Zayn’s dick with his tongue and Zayn will write songs, poems and create art about tonight.

If he doesn’t lose his mind with joy that is.

**

The light shining through the window is what wakes Zayn he thinks. And he spreads his arm out to the side of the bed where Liam had been.

Empty.

He realises quickly that what had woken him was the sound of the door being shut. He sits up with a start.

It’s funny how fast your life can turn to shit. It’s funny how the people you trust the most even for a little while are the ones who break you.

It’s funny how the moment you let your guard down, someone sneaks in to lower your defences so you’re at your most vulnerable.

He runs a hand through his hair as he tries to will away the tears that threaten to fall.

What was that? What was the last few hours?  

The smell of coffee is strong from next door, he normally doesn’t smell it quite so deeply, maybe he left a window open last night and what’s that smell of toast?

Stands to reason that he’s been broken into and has the most polite burglar who’s about to make himself and Zayn breakfast before he kills him and takes all his belongings.

He gets out of bed, stumbles more like, pulls on a pair of boxers he finds at the top of the chest of drawers and yawns. He’s got this ache that’s not the worst thing, not when he thinks of why he is aching, except it’s all hollow.

Bob still has the t-shirt over his face and Zayn hopes Doniya can come and collect him today ‘cause he needs every single memory of Liam out of his house.

Zayn stops dead at the bedroom door as he hears the voice singing.

_“You're upside down, I'm inside out, We're opposite, crazy but we just make sense, You're out of sight, I fall behind, We're opposite, crazy but we just make sense.” ___

____

____

The voice is more mature than he remembers, which figures of course, but it’s the same tone otherwise, and it’s a song he heard a while back.

One he’d added to his Alexa, and it just figures that Liam would find it, maybe would know it.

He walks to the kitchen, leans on the kitchen door, shaking his head as he watches the back of Liam who’s wearing one of Zayn’s henleys which is too tight on the shoulders but all the better for it.

The toast pops out of the toaster while Liam dances, grabbing a piece of it and lifting the top off the spreadable butter, buttering the toast and then reaching for the raspberry jam that’s been Zayn’s favourite since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.

Utterly oblivious to Zayn as the song continues and Zayn could watch him like this all day, but he’s also starving and curious so he steps into the kitchen.

“Your voice is still ace, babe, now where the fuck is my toast?”

Liam swivels around on his feet with a boyish smirk. “Be the toast to my crust?”

Zayn laughs and takes the toast to from his hand. “No, but I’ll have it anyway.”

“Hey,” he pouts.

“Sorry, babe. You’re just not my kind of jam.”

Liam rolls his eyes but giggles before his expression turns serious.

“I mean fine, but I didn’t hear you complaining last night even though the neighbours probably heard a lot more than complaining.”

He snatches back the toast from Zayn’s hand, raises his eyebrows and starts to dance again like he said nothing.

Zayn hates him. So much he could kiss him.

“Where’d you go? I heard the door slam, and well.”

Liam swivels back around but there’s no joy this time, just concern.

“Fuck Zayn, I didn’t think, I’m, shit, I’m so stupid, should’ve left a note or waited till you woke but you looked so rested and so serene and I couldn’t. I’m so sorry but I meant what I said last night, haven’t dreamt of this and you for so long to let it slip.”

Then quieter he adds, his eyes looking away from Zayn like he’s unsure. “If that’s okay, like?”

“You’re an idiot, Li, and so am I? I doubt we’d find anyone else willing to put up with this so yeah, it’s okay.”

Liam presses a quick kiss to Zayn’s lips and then turns away towards the fridge.

“Let’s just say that a boy can never be too prepared, and let’s also just say that the fact that we’re still standing here or at least not vomming all over the place means we aren’t dairy intolerant, et voila.”

He opens the fridge door with a flourish and Zayn starts to laugh.

“That’s a, yeah, that’ll keep us going for well.”

“Today and tonight I reckon, so yeah, get buttering some toast, drink some coffee and build up your strength soldier, you’re gonna need it.”

“Slavedriver.”

“You know it.”

They sit together at the breakfast bar, feet resting against each other’s and listening to the music. Sitting, thinking and for once, it’s not a morning filled with a deep void.

“Hey Liam, thank you. You came along at the right time, and let’s just say, me too re  dreaming of this.”

Liam’s never been more beautiful than in morning light, even when he was at school, but here as an adult, as the man he is now, he’s everything.

“Okay then, here goes nothing, I love you, Quiffy.”

Zayn scratches at his neck like he’s Quiffy the teenager all over again and then he throws his arm around Liam’s shoulder, draws him nearer and breathes in everything he’s missed out on for so long.

“That makes two of us, jaan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> The song Liam sings along to at the end is How did I find you by Neiked ft Miriam Bryant (acoustic version) - it's beautiful.
> 
> x


End file.
